Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will commit to ensuring that ringfenced NHS funding for children's hospices will be available for multiple years beyond 2025–26, and when they intend to make such a commitment.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

We are also providing £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the children and young people’s hospice grant. We cannot yet confirm what the funding for 2026/27 will be, or how it will be administered.

The Department and NHS England are looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.

The Government and the National Health Service will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that the future state of services reduces variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.

Officials will present further proposals to ministers over the coming months, outlining how to operationalise the required changes to palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.